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The next morning was a Thursday, and Nic woke up groggy, a slight heart attack rendering him momentarily useless when he realized his eight AM was now... nine AM. It wasn't until he sat up in a panic that it became abundantly clear that he, in fact, did not have an eight AM. The lie he fed to Kieran somehow managed to make his brain freak out for almost no reason at all.

Nic groaned, hands over his eyes as he realized Leo was up and about, stuffing things into his backpack for the day. "You're up. What time did you get back?" Leo asked him.

"Like, two in the morning..." he moaned aloud, and flopped back down on the bed. He double-checked to make sure his alarm was still set to go off in another hour.

"Seriously? What'd you guys do over there?" Leo asked, incredulously, and Nic scowled at his ceiling. That was certainly one way for Leo to suspect that Kieran wasn't ace at all.

"We just ate banana bread on the floor for, like, two hours. We hung out with his friend Bev and stuff," he explained, and remembered vividly those photographs taken of Kieran and Ellen in the bathtub. He slapped his hands over his face, and began to realize that the whole thing was probably a set up. No wonder Kieran was so insistent on having Bev show him the photographs. He wondered if they planned to have Nic go into Bev's room, take off his shoes, and act like he was settling in for the night. He wondered if they planned to show him those oh-so intimate photographs in an attempt to convince Nic that No, Kieran isn't ace at all! Maybe we could fool around, he'd be cool with that, right?

Now he knew that Kieran planned to ask Nic. It was the entire reason he probably invited Nic over at eleven at night. Eleven at night meant one AM would come in a jiffy, and it'd be a hassle to go back to the dorm. It would have been so easy to spend the night in the same bed as Kieran.

"They tricked me," Nic mused aloud, causing Leo to pause in the middle of zipping up his coat. Nic rolled over, sitting up a little to stare at Leo. "They tricked me. To make sure I wouldn't take advantage of Kieran. Holy shit—the only reason I passed was because I was afraid of throwing off my night routine of washing my face and shit! I didn't deserve to pass the test..."

He flopped back with a groan, pushing his hands into his eyes. "I'm so weak. I totally would have stayed the night if I had my face wash and stuff. Shit. I don't deserve him..."

"Okay, I'm kind of lost. What does your face wash have to do with not deserving Kieran?" Leo asked.

"Because he asked if I wanted to stay the night and I lied and said I had an eight AM but really I just didn't want to wake up with greasy skin and morning breath. But they took it as me not wanting to take advantage of Kieran and make him uncomfortable. Shit. Shit, shit, shit..."

Leo was quiet for a moment before asking, "Well, would you have taken advantage of him?"

"Not sexually! Gross, no, I wouldn't do that. But sleeping in the same bed is basically the same thing," Nic said, panicked at the thought of it. "But what matters is the fact that I totally would have, and they don't know that."

"So don't tell them. You learned your lesson, apparently," Leo said, slinging his backpack onto his shoulders and heading for the door. "I'll see you later. Try not to stress out about it too much."

"Yeah, see ya," Nic murmured, thinking to himself, Kieran is too pure for me. I don't deserve this... He couldn't stop thinking about the smile on Kieran's face after Nic confessed that he couldn't stay the night. Maybe he knew Nic lied about his eight AM class—that just made it seem like he was intentionally coming up with an excuse not to stay the night. But the truth was this: Kieran thought Nic was looking out for him. And did Nic deserve that title at all? The title of someone worthy of dating Kieran?

It's only fair at this point that Nic's habit of not sleeping continued due to his inability to control his fucking brain for eight hours a night. He talked to Sav enough about it to decide that eventually he'd have to tell Kieran the truth—preferably before their third date. He could tell she was immensely disappointed with him for ruining it, but... he was beating himself up about it enough to know without her explicitly saying it.

And it wasn't exactly a subject he could bring up to his Ma, so that Saturday he spent a good five hours not even worrying about it. It was great. He felt so okay for the first time since meeting all of Kieran's friends at the Co-Op, and hanging out with Bev in her hella-hipster plant-nerd room.

His Ma picked him up at the dorm, and he came out into the lobby to find her standing there by all the waiting chairs. "Mama!" he shouted, closing the distance between them in two seconds flat.

She gasped at the sight of him, tearing up a little as she covered him in kisses and gave him a squeeze around the torso. He giggled childishly, feeling like he was four years old again, coming back from kindergarten for the first time. "Mama, stop it," he laughed, leaning his head back.

"Oh, sorry. I got a little excited," she chuckled, patting his cheek and tugging him towards the door. "How's my baby boy doin'? How're classes?" she asked, arm still around his shoulders as they wandered down the stairs of Kingsley and out towards the parking lot. He told her all about his art classes, his gen. eds., among other things having to do with the few weeks they spent apart.

Just fifteen minutes spent in the car with his Ma did wonders for the pain and suffering of the past, oh, two weeks. And it wasn't like he could hide the bags under his eyes—though, concealer did help a little. He had to buy some just to convince his Ma that he was getting eight hours of sleep a night. He would have borrowed from Sav, but she was as pale as could be. She was practically a ghost standing next to him.

"You know you're supposed to go to bed at ten."

"Ma, you know that's impossible in college."

"Nic, I'm serious!"

"Me too!" he cried out with a groan. "Whatever, I'll try and get some sleep tonight. I don't have anything going on tomorrow as far as I know."

"Good," she huffed with a curt nod of her head. She turned on her blinker, and they waited at a red light in the middle of downtown. "You should come home one of these days. We all miss you."

"It's too far of a drive, and I don't want to waste money on a bus ticket," Nic confessed with a sigh. "How is everyone?"

"Julian went to Homecoming last weekend. Though, I'm sure he told you all about his date. He asked a girl on the track team to go with him."

Nic laughed a little. He got plenty of Snapchats just of the two of them making faces at the camera. But he remembered her dress, and how beautiful the plum color was, matching Julian's tie and everything. Nic remembered his first Homecoming—it'd been stressful, trying to pair the color of his tie to a swatch his date had sent a picture of in the dark with a flash. Somehow the color matched perfectly and they geeked about it practically all night.

They talked about the Homecoming and how it went, because it wasn't like Julian would tell Nic the details himself. That would require torture in the form of Nic sitting on him until he spilled the details. Their Ma had far better tactics, so of course the whole neighborhood knew that Julian got his first kiss that night.

She bought him lunch at a old fashioned diner that was apparently in a classic movie she once saw in her college days. They walked the frigid streets and talked, talked, talked until they came to a candy store where she bought him a pound of chocolate-covered gummy bears that were to die for. Next door there was a bookshop—but it was for anything and everything having to do with the World Wars, which was bizarre in Nic's opinion, but they wandered through it anyways. His Ma never really made plans—she just went with the flow.

They went to her hotel then afterwards, which wasn't too far from the bookstore, and they watched TV because Nic and Leo didn't have one—nor did they really need one. Gone With The Wind was playing, so they laid together on the queen-sized bed eating the gummy bears and watched about two hours of it together. It was all pretty mindless stuff, really, and honestly something Nic needed for the weekend.

Mama came back from the bathroom with her fuzzy slippers. It was ridiculous that she came so prepared for just one night. That was Nic's Mama—she may not be able to plan events, but she sure knew how to pack right. Her heavy brown hair was pulled back into a bun at the top of her head as she crawled onto the bed, settling in next to Nic as the commercials ended.

"Has everything been okay aside from classes?" she asked him, letting him tip towards her shoulder so she could cuddle him there, her arms around him.

"Everything's fine. Savannah and I are still friends."

"I wish I could meet her."

"She's intimidated by you, no offense," Nic murmured. His Ma hummed in understand, and gave a shrug. He hesitated for a moment before looking up at her. "Is that your passive-aggressive way of saying you need to meet her today?"

"I'm not saying anything," she said pointedly—which meant of course she meant something by it.

"Mama..."

"Okay! Okay. Would she and Leo want to go out for dinner? My treat?" she asked, and Nic shrugged, saying that he'd ask them.

Nearly immediately after he texted them, he knocked out for a solid hour. He woke up near the end of the movie, since it had started before they even got to the hotel room, and he found that she was asleep as well, leaning over the pillows behind him. His eyes felt groggy and crusty, so he rubbed them to clear the sleep away before finding that both Leo and Sav were on board with the dinner idea.

He nudged his Ma awake and said, "Hey, dinner's a go."

She yawned, stretching her arms to the side as she said, "That's great! Did you sleep well?"

He nodded, still rubbing at his face. It felt like it didn't fit him right—that probably had something to do with the fact that he was actually able to sleep for an hour without thinking of... anything. He didn't dream, and he definitely didn't dream of Kieran in the nude saying, "This isn't sexual, is it?"

"Hey Ma," he asked, "I haven't been sleeping well in the dorms. Is there something I could take to help me sleep?"

"A more regular schedule would help..."

"Mama! Besides that!"

"I'm serious! A regular schedule, and we'll get you cherry juice. It always helps Rosa fall asleep," she told him, pushing herself off the bed and kicking off her slippers in favor of actual shoes. "Now hurry up. We'll stop by the store to get you some juice to drink before bed. Unless you want some of my herbal tea...?"

He fake-gagged and hurriedly got off the bed. "Gross, no tea please. Cherry juice is fine."

5:34pm

Bev is typing...

Snapchat from Bev: Kieran's coming to pick u up from Kingsley

Nic is typing...
Nic: Ok... why didn't he tell me this himself?

Bev is typing...

5:40pm

Kieran: Im outside Kingsley rn

Nic: What why?

Kieran: Didnt Bev update you? Get out here loser before I leave without you.

Nic: I'm not even at Kingsley I'm at that sushi restaurant in downtown

Nic stared at his phone periodically waiting for Kieran's response, but the screen remained forever blank, much to his dismay. He tapped his foot on the ground nervously, but how was he supposed to know Kieran was going to text him so suddenly? He supposed a little warning might have helped.

"Everything okay?" his Ma asked, lifting a roll of sushi up with her chopsticks as she looked at him pointedly, those round doe eyes probing him for information.

Sav, who sat next to him with full-view of the texts, said, "Nah, it's just Nic's practically-boyfriend."

Nic's eyes went wide, and he kicked her in the ankle. Leo, who sat beside his Ma and just barely out of eyesight from her, looked equally shocked by Sav's blatant betrayal. Sav shrugged, unfazed by their anger, mainly because Nic's Ma now had her eyebrows up to her hairline, staring at her son in surprise.

"A boyfriend, huh? Seems you skipped over that part," she mused, pursing her lips before opening them to bite into her sushi. She was smirking, and Nic dreaded it. She knew full well that she would pry all of the information out of him before this dinner ended.

"Aw, Mama..." Nic whined, just thinking about poor Julian being forced to spill the details on his first kiss with Mama.

She lowered her chopsticks and raised her hands up in surrender. "I'm sorry I couldn't be the mother you tell everything to, honey. Back at home you would have told me everything like that time you had a girlfriend in middle school, and—Well, I guess things change when your baby boy moves away to college. He starts keeping secrets, and maybe that's what's making you sleep so terribly, hm? You know, you'd sleep a whole lot better if you just took all this weight off your chest and let me help you once in a while, but no...!"

Nic went bright red, covering his face in his hands as she switched from talking to Sav to Nic to Sav again—spreading lies and all. Sav ate all of it up, nodding and agreeing and saying, "You're right! You are so right. Your son has a serious problem. I can't believe it's come to this—mhm! Yup, I can't believe it." Leo sat there smiling like at idiot, enjoying every second of Nic's Ma spilling all of the details about how upset she was over Nic getting his first boyfriend in college and not telling her about it! Apparently it was just unbelievable!

"Mama..." Nic pleaded. "We've only gone on two dates—I didn't want to tell you until—"

"Until what, hm?" she said, snapping her fingers at him. "Until I was old and grey and dead? Hm? Is that when you would have told me? What's his name? Tell me his name, Nic!"

Sav choked on her laugh, gawking at Nic as if to say, "You've done it now!"

"I didn't tell you because I knew you'd tell all the neighbors about it! You know how they are—the entire town would know by the end of the week!" Nic exclaimed.

"I would never—!"

Nic shook his head, laughing in distain as he snapped his fingers at her, leaning over the table. "You. Would. Too! Rosa wouldn't stop talking about it until you let her come here and badger him to death! And I don't think he'd like the attention—you'd add him on Facebook and Instagram and everything. You'd share embarrassing cat pictures with him and you two would gang up on me, wouldn't you?"

"Never—!"

"You and Mae did it all the time!" Nic cried out. "There's still evidence of cat pictures all over Mae's Facebook wall!"

Mama leaned back, arms crossed and eyebrows still raised at him, clearly disappointed in him. Eventually she shook her head, lips pursed tight. "She loves those cat pictures," she said stubbornly. "And you two are still friends! I don't see why it's a problem we're still friends on Facebook!"

"Wait—Tell me about Nic's ex. I want to hear about this," Sav insisted, propping her chin up on her hand.

"Sav, c'mon," Leo said, and Nic slapped his hand onto his forehead as his Ma went on a tangent about how great Mae was. Nic stuffed all his aggravation into the sushi he scarfed down, and he wasn't sure if the sick feeling in his stomach was from the food, or because his Ma was spreading lies and rumors about him. She was dragging his name through the mud without a care in the world.

It wasn't until Leo's eyes went wide that he grabbed everyone's attention away from the topic of Nic's ex-love-life. "Whoa, what's Kieran doing here?" he asked.

Nic went pale, and he twisted around to look at the entrance to the restaurant. There was a bamboo screen partially in the way, but... there Kieran was. He was tugging off his gloves as he asked the hostess where... they were. Shit.

Kieran looked over at them, following the hostess's gaze. In the dim light of the restaurant, all maroon and black, he looked deadly in his pale skin and dark clothes, which didn't change the way he seemed to glare at Nic. It's not my fault, it's not my fault, Nic chanted to himself. How was he supposed to know Kieran would pick him up? Or what time?

Nic was about to scramble up to stop Kieran from coming over, but he was already on the way, and Nic's Ma practically shouted, "Is this the boy?"

Kieran came up to the booth and stole a chair from a nearby table. He yanked it over and pointedly sat on it the wrong way, forearms over the back as he swung his athletic bag onto the ground. He glared pointedly at Nic, who was overly horrified by the entire ordeal, before looking over the faces at the table. "Hey everybody. Sorry for crashing the party," he said.

Nic couldn't tell what the look on his Ma's face was, but instinct told him that it would never be good. And Sav and Leo were just there as spectators. Fucking perfect.

"It's no problem," Mama said, smiling at Kieran as she reached a hand out. "I'm Nic's mother. You can call me Miss Sandoval."

It wasn't until that moment that Kieran's entire demeanor changed. Nic... sometimes forgot how young his Ma looked—and it wasn't that she was young or anything. She just had the classic, smooth-skinned complexion untouched by wrinkles. She used buckets of moisturizer—she was the entire reason Nic's skin was the way it was.

So yeah... it was reasonable to assume Kieran had no idea that she was a mother at all.

"O-Oh," Kieran stammered, and cleared his throat, reaching a hand out and shaking hers. "Nice to meet you... Miss Sandoval. I'm friends with your son."

"Friends?" she commented, those raised eyebrows now facing Nic, and then Sav. "Friends," she articulated again.

"Mama," Nic whined. "Be nice."

"I am nice."

"Oh Jesus, this is too good," Sav whispered under her breath, smirking all the while. "Miss Sandoval, you should know Nicolas painted a beautiful portrait of that man right there. You have a picture of it, right?"

Nic turned red in an instant, and before he could deny it, Kieran took out his phone. "Yeah, your son is an excellent artist," he said, swiping through his photos and holding up the painting to her. "It was the first time I modeled for a painting. He's actually supposed to accompany me to a modeling class tonight, which is why I came. But it seems like you all are busy, so..."

Yeah, because you never told me the time, Nic mused bitterly.

His Ma was still staring at the portrait before she cleared her throat and handed the phone back. "A modeling class? That's interesting."

"Yeah. I never really considered it before, but... Nic convinced me to try it out," he said, nodding over to Nic with a grin. "Right?"

"I didn't exactly encourage it," he remarked, annoyed, and earned a glare for it. He stuffed a sushi roll into his mouth and chewed on it angrily. "But yes, I guess I did suggest it."

His Ma hummed, and then went straight into the interrogating. "So are you a freshmen too? What are you studying?"

Kieran shook his head and said, "I'm actually a sophomore like Leo. We actually knew each other last year. And I'm studying environmental science."

"Is that how you and Nic met?"

"No. He actually drew my face about fifty times before asking if he could paint me." To Nic's utter horror and surprise, his Ma actually burst out laughing, shouting, "That sounds like something he'd do!"

"Mama!"

She slammed her hands on the table, tears in her eyes as she giggled. "Oh, come on! It is! I know you better than anyone at this table, honey. You really want to argue with me on this?" she snapped at him, and Nic's face flushed all variations of red and pink while Kieran stared at the both of the, smirking like an idiot.

"Kieran and I actually met through the RA program," Leo changed the subject, much to Nic's relief. "We had these huge group interview sessions, and we were in the same group during the process."

"No kidding?" Mama said, brushing tears from her eyes as she turned to Leo. They delved into the conversation about RAs, and how Kieran didn't get the position but Leo did. Which led to where Kieran was living now—the Co-Op—and how he... had to get going if he was going to make it to the modeling session on time.

Kieran pushed himself out of the chair and pulled out his gloves. "It was nice meeting you Miss Sandoval—"

"No, wait! Take my son—you said he was supposed to come with," she interrupted, jumping up from her seat. Nic donned a startled look, and turned to Sav to clarify that yes, his Ma actually intended to send him out of the restaurant. "We're basically done eating anyway. Nic, up, up!"

He groaned and scooted out of the booth. She went over to Kieran and pulled him into a hug. Kieran tensed a little, his hands half-lifted as if he didn't know what to do. And honestly, he looked kind of panicked. "It was nice meeting you, Kieran. I hope I get to see you again soon—and maybe next time, Nic will actually invite you."

"Don't be mean, Mama," he said, pointedly glaring at her as she turned to hug him next. He pressed his cheek to her hair, and breathed in the smell of her salon shampoo. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Mhm, you will," she said—and it came out as a half-threat that made him worry more. She promised to drive Leo and Sav back to the dorm. Apparently they had much to discuss.